An Author Interview from Books At a Glance
You’ve heard of her husband, and you may even have heard her husband’s sermons disguised as someone else’s. But what do you know about her? Charles Spurgeon’s beloved wife Susannah, that is.
Well, as a matter of fact, there has been comparatively little written about the famous preacher’s wife, but Ray Rhodes has filled the gap with his excellent new book, Susie: The Life and Legacy of Susannah Spurgeon.
I’m Fred Zaspel, executive editor here at Books At a Glance, and we’re talking to Ray Rhodes about his new book. Ray, welcome, and congratulations on an important new book!
Rhodes:
Thank you, Fred. And thank you for having me on your program today; I appreciate your ministry there.
Zaspel:
For all that we know and can read about Charles Spurgeon, there really has been relatively little written about his wife – important as she was to him and his ministry. So, tell us about your interest in her and how this book came about.
Rhodes:
Right. The only other biography of Susannah was in 1903 by Charles Ray. It’s been republished by Banner of Truth. It’s brief, it’s good, helpful, but again very brief. She appears in little bits and pieces in the biographies of Charles Spurgeon, but no full biography has ever been done. I think part of the reason for that may be that Spurgeon was such a gigantic figure, himself, that he sort of overshadowed everything else, though he dearly loved his wife and encouraged her in her work. I think at least part of the answer, is that Spurgeon is such a large figure that that’s immediately where most people’s attention runs, first of all.
Zaspel:
And your own interest?
Rhodes:
I’ve been interested in Spurgeon for quite a long time as many pastors have. I think I read my first full, major biography of him in the early 90s and continued from there. I went back to school a few years ago. I went to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to work on my DMin, and while I was there I had to choose a thesis topic. I started looking at angles to Spurgeon and it dawned on me that Charles and Susie’s spirituality may be a topic that would be of interest. And I began digging through the resources and looking online and could find really very little about Susie herself. The long story short, I wrote about the spirituality of Charles and Susie and then afterwards, in talking to various publishers, there seemed to be an interest in a biography of Susie. So, I began to peel back the layers of that and found a really fascinating woman that I didn’t know like I thought I knew.
Zaspel:
Fascinating! It’s just a landmark book; it’s really great. And I see you have a nice endorsement for your book from the Spurgeons’ great- great-granddaughter! That was a nice touch!
Rhodes:
It’s wonderful. It’s really in the providence of God that I met an elderly couple, a retired Particular Baptist pastor, at Southern. He and his wife were visiting for the first time ever to America and I struck up a conversation with them. They are from England and I told them that I was headed to London and he asked who would be picking me up at the airport and I said, “The train, I assume.” And he said, “That won’t work. My wife and I will be there to pick you and your wife up.” And so that began a friendship and along the way he said, “Did I tell you I live 10 minutes from Susannah Spurgeon Cochran, the great- great-granddaughter of Charles and Susie Spurgeon.”
Zaspel:
And you said, “I have to meet her!”
Rhodes:
That’s exactly what I said, and he arranged that. She’s a young mother; she put her children to bed at her home and drove over to the Gardeners’ (William and Maureen Gardner’s their name) home. We met for the first time a few years ago, and then we met again back in the Fall with her and her husband at her home. She is a delightful person. What a great treat to have her participate in this project and have her write an endorsement, plus an Afterword in the book!
Zaspel:
Let’s start at the beginning. Who was Susannah Thompson?
Rhodes:
Susannah Thompson was a London girl all of her life. Really, two cities could characterize Susie, London and Paris. She lived in London and later in her teen years she traveled to Paris quite a bit for various reasons, educational pursuits being one of them. Her father was Robert Thompson, her mother was Susannah, as well, Susannah Knott was her maiden name, but Susannah Thompson also. They were married in the early 1800s. Robert was in the manufacturing, industrial world, and as a traveling sales rep at various times, his income was up and down a bit. However, Susie seemed to have many privileges that were afforded to upper-middle-class society. She was very cultured, very refined. She spoke English very well and she also spoke French fluently. She was educated, cultured, everything that Charles Spurgeon… well, Charles Spurgeon was educated, but he didn’t have the cultural perspective that Susie did in his earlier days.
There’s not much about her childhood. That was the challenge of writing the first part of this book. I went through census records, legal reports, pieced together her family, how she got into the Thomas Olney home to begin with, which is how she ended up at New Park Street Chapel, which is how she heard Charles Spurgeon for the first time. That in itself is an amazing providence. Thomas’s son, William, married Susie’s cousin and that’s the connection. William Olney was also married to a Susannah, so that brought our Susie into the Olney home. They were devoted members at New Park Street Chapel and encouraged her to attend the first night that Spurgeon was preaching there, as a guest preacher, and the story began that Sunday night.
Zaspel:
You said she was well-educated. Did she have more formal education than Charles did?
Rhodes:
Well, it would probably have been more refined, if that’s the right word. Charles certainly had a good education and he read, as you know, prolifically. But Susie was in schools at times, as best as we know. She didn’t leave us a lot of information about that, but she would have been trained in the home and in school. She certainly would have grown up knowing music and art and poetry and those sorts of things. But later she went to France and lived with a pastor and his family. He was of the French Reformed movement, and it was in his home that his daughters taught her French and she also became very acclimated to French culture and came to know Paris very well.
Zaspel:
Tell us how she and Charles met, their first impressions, how she came to Christ, and how the two of them were drawn together. And what age were they when they married?
Rhodes:
Susie was born in 1832 and Charles was born in 1834. So, she was actually about two and half years older than Charles. She was born in January of 1832 and he was born in June of 1834. She was converted, I think, in late 1852. At least that’s when she dates her conversion, not the specific date, but around that time. She was not yet married, had not yet met Spurgeon, was visiting the Poultry Chapel, which was a church there in London, not far from where she lived in central London at the time, and she was converted. The pastor was preaching from Romans 10. And yet, she didn’t tell anyone; she kept her profession to herself. She almost immediately felt like she was backsliding, her heart was cold, spiritually, and she was struggling; but, she didn’t reach out for any help. That was her condition leading up to December 18, 1853, when Charles Spurgeon, the young pastor from Waterbeach in the north of London, was invited to be the guest preacher at the New Park Street Chapel. They were without a pastor. She didn’t come to morning service, but she did come to evening service. We don’t know if they actually met, personally, that night; however, she was unimpressed with the preacher. She didn’t appreciate Charles (laughter). She didn’t like his hair, she didn’t like the way he dressed, she didn’t like his mannerisms or his speech. So, there’s really nothing about the young pastor that she liked. Later, she looked back on that and pointed to her cold heart, spiritually, as the reason. But, again, she was wondering why the New Park Street, which once had been the largest Baptist church in the city and certainly the most prominent one, it had a long line of prominent ministers, why they would invite this country preacher, as she saw him, to fulfill the esteemed pulpit. Nothing was sparking that night, at all and she doesn’t remember, nor does Charles mention, when they first actually met face-to-face.
If we fast-forward a little bit to April 1854, then Charles is going to be formally announced as the pastor, though he has been preaching there pretty regularly until then. Susie tells her cousin by marriage, William Olney, about her spiritual condition. It seems that he told Charles and Charles gave her a copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress and signed it. That began a relationship with Charles and Susie that was a pastor helping to care for an attendee of the church, she was not a member. She had not been baptized and was not a member of the church, but attended. She began opening up more about her spiritual struggles and Charles counseled her, at that point. No indication of any sort of romantic feelings, just, as she says, a pastor helping a struggling participant of his flock.
Fast-forward just a couple of months more, in June, at the grand reopening of the Crystal Palace, which has moved to South London, Spurgeon and Susie and a group from the New Park Street Chapel were attending that reopening, seated together. Charles happened to be seated beside Susie and it was that night that he revealed his feelings to her in their unique way. He got a book, as he often did, like many pastors, he always had a book under his arm; and he opened this book, by Martin Tupper, to a section on marriage. The book was titled, Proverbial Philosophy, and in that section, the author asked the question, “Do you pray for him who is to be your spouse?” And Spurgeon asked Susie that question. He said, “Do you pray for him?” (Laughter) I don’t know if many guys are using that method anymore, but Spurgeon was sly. She had no indication, there is no hint that she had any idea before that moment, how Spurgeon felt about her, which is interesting. But she knew immediately what he was saying and he whispered in her air, “Would you mind taking a walk with me?” So, they walked around the palace; they walked outside by the lake; they saw what we know now to be the early dinosaur models that are still there, many of them. She talks about her rapidly beating heart, her blushed face, and how love was in the air. So, it was very romantic and poetic, especially when you think back just a few months prior, she didn’t appreciate anything about him, and now her heart is beating and she is excited about this newfound love. A couple of months later, they are engaged, in August. So, from December, 1853 until August, 1854, just that period of time, things had changed dramatically.
Zaspel:
And when did they marry?
Rhodes:
They married in January of 1856. So, that began their engagement. Susie applied for church membership and was baptized by Charles, as well, in 1854 or 1855. She wrote out her testimony, and Charles was very moved by that, and she became a member of the church prior to their marriage in 1856.
Zaspel:
That’s a great story.
Describe their marriage for us, some aspects of their relationship. How were they such a good fit, and why is it you can describe their marriage as “fun.”?
Rhodes:
That’s a great question. We don’t often think of “fun” in terms of Spurgeon, but he was actually a very fun guy and had a great sense of humor in a wonderful way.
Their marriage started off a bit challenging for Susie. It never changed, but her mindset about that changed over time. She missed him – he was already very popular, people flocked to see him – and so she was often lonely when she didn’t travel with him. So, she faced that issue and that really never went away, but she made a commitment early on not to be a hindrance to his ministry, understanding that God had called him and she wanted to support him and she worked very hard to be that sort of helpmeet to him. She also had to sacrifice financially early on. Even though the church was growing, Spurgeon was still a relatively new pastor. And he was very generous. They gave of their income to help begin what we know now as The Pastor’s College, with one student, sacrificing money and time and effort with that. So, there was a lot occupying Spurgeon’s attention. The ministry of the church as it grew, the institutions of the church that Spurgeon was giving oversight to, itinerant preaching that took him away a good bit, those are the sorts of challenges that she felt.
At that time, early in their marriage, both of them enjoyed relatively good health, but not even a year into their marriage, they had twins. They married in January, 1856 and in late September, they had twin boys. So, they were newly married, now they have two children, Spurgeon’s ministry is growing, and that leads to the great music hall disaster. But she faced the loneliness, sacrifice of money, they had to pinch pennies, early on at least. That changed, of course, and financially things got better for them. But, they traveled a lot together, and one of the stunning stories about Susie is that she was a mountain hiker. She hiked through the Alps, and when I learned that I almost fell out of my chair. I just had never envisioned Susie Spurgeon as hiking the Alps. Now, Spurgeon didn’t care that much for hiking; he was riding in his carriage, talking to his publisher about books and theology, and Susie was out in front of the carriage, in fact out of sight at times, exploring things along the way.
Zaspel:
Did Susie have a sense of humor like Charles?
Rhodes:
I think she did. Trying to translate British humor into American thinking and language is somewhat challenging, but yes. She describes them laughing together until they would both be crying. Looking back on their honeymoon, seeing experiences that they faced, and later laughing about things that may have brought her some pain or discomfort early on. She talks about rowing in Italy, in Venice, and visiting the art museums. She loved the simple artwork of some of the Dutch Masters more than she did many of the Madonnas and other works of art that were greatly appreciated during that time. They toured cathedrals together, art galleries; she went to services with Spurgeon; she was with him when he preached in Calvin’s church in Geneva. They enjoyed walking the property together at their home and talking. So that was a common activity in the Spurgeon home, Charles and Susie, often hand-in-hand, walking around the property together. They had gardens, they had animals… They had a wonderful marriage. They read to each other, she read to him when he was depressed and comforted him. A wonderful marriage.
Zaspel:
How was she involved in or a help to his ministry?
Rhodes:
For the first part of their marriage she was really instrumental in helping with the baptismal candidates, the ladies of the church who were to be baptized. She ministered to them and when she died some of those ladies gave testimony of how wise her counsel and encouragement had been. So, that was a help to Spurgeon. Of course, she early on attended his ministry, on Sunday mornings especially, and encouraged him in that way. She served alongside of him by helping him; sometimes she would read commentaries to him. When he was studying on Saturday night he would say, “Wifey, how about getting me Thomas Brooks, (or one of the Puritans), and reading this section on this page?” And she would do that. Even during their engagement, she was involved in those sorts of activities. In fact, one evening during their engagement (Charles would go over to her home on Monday nights and edit his sermons), and he handed her a book by Thomas Brooks, one of the Puritans, and asked her to go through that book, pull out some salient points, and write those down for him. And that became Smooth Stones Taken from Ancient Brooks, a book that is still published today. Susie’s name is not on it, though she pulled most of those quotes. But she does say there is a love story between those pages that no one can see. That happened in Spurgeon’s study. So, yes, she helped him in that way and, of course, later when Lectures to My Students came out, the first volume in 1875, Susie distributed that through the beginning of the Pastor’s Book Fund.
Zaspel:
He called her Susie, and you just mentioned that he called her Wifey. Did he have any other pet names for her?
Rhodes:
They did for each other. In fact, I thought about a chapter or maybe writing an article with all of the different ones like Double Dearly Beloved. Just the descriptors they gave one another, just lovely, romantic… I’ve often said that Spurgeon’s letters to Susie would have made many Victorians blush. He was not inappropriate or salacious in any way, but he was deeply romantic. He talked about daydreaming about his wife, about being gone for five minutes and missing her terribly, a longing to see her. Lovely stories. He was quite the guy.
Zaspel:
Tell us about their children and her role as a mother.
Rhodes:
Thomas and Charles were twins. Charles came out first so we often give him the Junior title, and then Thomas. She was most involved in their training, more than Spurgeon, who was gone quite a bit. However, when he was home Charles led family worship every day and Susie writes that wherever they were, whether at home or away, family worship was one of those nonnegotiable items in family life. If Charles was away, then Susie led that, and she led that on Sunday nights. Now, I don’t know all the reasons why this might be in Victorian culture, but Susie didn’t often attend on Sunday evening services. She stayed home with the children when they were young, and then later she was unable to attend because of her health. She trained them at home; she read Scripture to them; she was a pianist, so she played while they sang hymns together. She was very careful not to let them sing verses that gave a clear profession of faith in Christ until they had actually made a profession of faith in Christ that was credible. So she taught them integrity, like that, and that also put a longing in their hearts to want to know Christ. Both of the boys, though they were converted, the moment of conversion, under someone else, a missionary maybe in both cases, they both really point to Susie as vital to their conversions, and Charles, but Susie, I think, more so than Charles even. Thomas seemed especially close to his mother. She loved both of her boys very much, but Thomas talked a lot like his dad in very affectionate terms. He talks about as a boy, having his arms wrapped around his mother’s neck. And even as a young man, when she died, how he wished that he could have his arms around her neck again. They wrote very affectionate letters to one another, so I think they had a close relationship, as she loved both of the boys. They both became ministers and served God faithfully, themselves.
Zaspel:
Many have heard of Spurgeon’s varied suffering, but I’m sure not many are aware of Susie’s. Tell us about that.
Rhodes:
Susie’s mother died at age 57, the same age as Charles, and her sister died young, as well. Sometime after Susie gave birth to Charles and Thomas, she began experiencing some female issues. We don’t know the specifics of that. However, it was also during that time she was traveling and doing relatively well. She was in church, she was traveling with Charles. That’s when she was hiking the Alps and various things. But around 1867, ’68, I’ve got records from the Metropolitan Tabernacle that actually show when she stopped attending due to sickness.
Zaspel:
What year was that, again?
Rhodes:
That would’ve been around 1868, or late 1867, she’s not attending anymore due to sickness, or rarely attending. And then by 1868 there’s no attendance but Susie, anymore, and she writes that her traveling days were over at that point. You can imagine how hard that must of been. As they had traveled together they had enjoyed that so much and now she’s homebound. She has surgery in late 1868 or early 1869 by the most famed gynecologist of that day. Simpson is his last name, and he was a believer. He came to know Christ after years of rejecting Christ, he came to know Christ. He was a Christian when he operated on Susie. That happened in Brighton, south of London, maybe about an hour south of London and we don’t know the specifics of that. I write quite a bit about the sickness and about the doctor and about Susie’s feelings during that time, but for various reasons, one being Victorianism, perhaps, the exact nature of it is not revealed, and so we have made some guesses. One of my theories is that she had endometriosis, because she suffered the rest of her life and there were seasons in which her suffering was so intense, that she felt the pain throughout her body, which endometriosis can cause. It’s not just pain to the female organs, it’s also pain in your head, and in your hands, and everywhere else. She describes days where she was unable to lift her head or her hand. I mean that’s a possibility. It could have been a hysterectomy that went bad. Of course, 1860s medical care was very different from today. Some have surmised that it could have been some of those things and also connected rheumatoid arthritis… We just don’t know. But centered in gynecology; that’s what we do know. She had seasons in which she has some improvement, but mostly if she took a ride a mile away from home and came back, she was bedridden after that. She suffered greatly and yet did not quit on life and didn’t lose faith in Christ. She persevered through that and probably later in the interview we can talk about how God miraculously raised her up and gave her some opportunities later in life.
Zaspel:
And what year did she die?
Rhodes:
She died in October of 1903.
Zaspel:
Tell us one or two things you learned in your research of Susie’s life that stand out in your mind as most interesting or significant in some way.
Rhodes:
That’s great. Let me start toward the end, and that’s the planting of a church. Charles dies in 1892, Susie’s health has improved somewhat, she travels with Charles to Mentone which is her first time ever. He goes there every year from the early 1870s onward for recovery and other reasons, but she goes with him. After that she returns to the Book Fund and she gives away 200,000 books through Mrs. Spurgeon’s Book Fund before she dies, as well as clothes and money. Her burden was for poor pastors and their families; that was the great burden of her heart. She was so sad over the suffering of pastors not having sufficient food, clothing, medical care, those sorts of things. Some churches she felt could do better. She felt churches should work together to help support these pastors. If the pastors didn’t have the resources they need, how could they focus on their flock if they’re constantly concerned about their sick wife and their children who needed shoes or clothes? She just felt that churches, individually or collectively, should be investing in pastors and the gospel would spread as a result of that. So, she continued that work. She writes most of her books after Charles dies, five books total standalone, four after he died, plus she’s been a major contributor and editor of the four volume Autobiography of Charles Spurgeon, which is fantastic. It is the starting place of all things Spurgeon. And then in the mid to late 1890s she plants a church. She visits Bexhill-on-Sea while her home at Westwood is being repaired; she asks where’s the local Baptist Church; the gentleman she asks says there’s not one; that burdens her, so she goes back to Westwood and begins praying. She actually sends the first pastor there; she chooses their pastor; she leads the efforts for fundraising. There are markers to her at the church today, the foundation stones that are laid by her sons and by her, and that is Beulah Baptist Church. It still exists, today, a beautiful medieval style building. I had another one of those falling out of your chair moments that Susie Spurgeon, the elderly, afflicted widow, planted a church. Not something you read in most church planting manuals.
Zaspel:
You gotta love it! That’s great!
Rhodes:
That’s what we want for our church planters, you’ve got to be old, a widow, and afflicted. (Laughter.)
Zaspel:
Your subtitle is “The Life and Legacy of Susanna Spurgeon.” What is Susie’s lasting legacy?
Rhodes:
I’ll maybe just mention one thing; I write several in that last section. But Susie loved her husband, she loved his ministry, she loved his writing and it was her deepest desire to make sure that we would have his writing today. She was concerned about generations yet to come, and I’m convinced that we would not have Charles Spurgeon, as we have him, had Susie not been so invested in his ministry and had not had the desire to see that legacy passed on. She was more interested in his legacy that her legacy. She would be surprised to see her face on the cover of a book; she would rather see Charles’s face there.
Zaspel:
So, in a sense, he is her legacy, then.
Rhodes:
He is her legacy. In fact, I don’t think we would have the Charles Spurgeon that we have today if she had not been that committed to that, but also, I’m not sure what sort of Charles Spurgeon we would have today if he had never met and married Susie. I think, in his case, he needed not just a wife, he needed that particular wife. He needed Susie Thompson. And she helped to give us… and there are folks who read your material and are listening to your broadcast who know this… we love Charles Spurgeon because of the gospel, because he loved Jesus. We love him because we can open any of his books, point to any paragraph, read a couple of sentences, and walk away saying, “Wow! Jesus is greater than I ever imagined. I wish I could think so beautifully about Christ.” So, I think God’s instrument on earth, to give us that man, is Susie Spurgeon. As I peeled back the layers I became increasingly convinced that we don’t have him, the way we have him, without her.
Zaspel:
What a landmark book.
We’re talking to Ray Rhodes about his new book, Susie: The Life and Legacy of Susannah Spurgeon. It fills a very important gap in church history studies. It’s very well researched. It comes very highly recommended. And it’s a really great read, as you can already tell from this interview. This book is sure to be popular and in print for a long time.
Ray, you’ve done really great work – thanks so much. And thanks for talking to us today.
Rhodes:
Thank you, Brother Fred, blessings to you.
